Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Come next Tuesday night, we’ll get a resolution (let’s hope) to a great ongoing battle of 2012: not just the Presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but the one between the pundits trying to analyze that race with their guts and a new breed of statistics gurus trying to forecast it with data.

In Election 2012 as seen by the pundits–political journalists on the trail, commentators in cable-news studios–the campaign is a jump ball. There’s a slight lead for Mitt Romney in national polls and slight leads for Barack Obama in swing-state polls, and no good way of predicting next Tuesday’s outcome beyond flipping a coin. ...

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Given that the GOP has demonstrated no actual capacity to reduce spending any more than the Democrats, do you think that lower tax rates coupled with constant expenditures is better for the economy and the country?

A good start would be making sure that people like Bryan Fischer are completely and utterly ostrasized from influence over the party:

Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of the conservative fundamentalist American Family Association, on Thursday told a so-called “expert” who denies climate change that not using God’s fossil fuels would be like “crushing” someone’s feelings by rejecting their birthday present.

The Cornwall Alliance’s Calvin Beisner, who has previously said that believing in climate change “is an insult to God,” explained on Thursday that the Bible said it was also very rude to not use oil, coal and natural gas.

“The wicked and lazy master was the one who buried his talent in the ground and didn’t do anything to multiply it,” Beisner explained. “That’s essentially what those who say we need to stop using oil, coal and natural gas are telling us to do. Just leave those resources buried in the ground, rather than pulling them out and multiplying their value for human benefit.”

Fischer likened the situation to a birthday present he was given at the age of six.

“I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”

“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

If you ignore all the weird paranoia and terrible, terrible atmosphere of secrecy, which admittedly is a big deal, Nixon actually has a hell of a record. He ended Vietnam, he founded the EPA, he normalized relations with China, he was a faithful steward of Harry Truman's foreign policy.

I have no beef with Nixon's accomplishments. I always feel like he gets a bit of an unfair shake. Edit: Same for George Bush I.

That is the amazing thing about Nixon actually. For all the bat-#### crazy things he did, he actually did some very positive things which I cant say for some the his ilk that don't carry as much negative connotation as he did.

I wouldn't give him credit for ending the Vietnam War however as he takes a lot of the blame in extending it to Laos and Cambodia.

I'm pretty sure no president was prefect, but post WWII, Nixon compares reasonably with his peers. Johnson, Clinton, and Eisenhower were probably stronger, but to watch Futurama, you'd think he was as bad as Bush II or Kennedy, which he most assuredly was not. HOVG, no doubt.

Yes, me too; between that and the stats showing increased House incumbency,

Gee, and people complain that I don't let things die.

For about the tenth time, your entire "increased House incumbency" theory is based on a minuscule 3-percentage-point difference between imbalanced sample sizes with cherry-picked endpoints, while also ignoring the relatively modern trend of strategic retirement and the increasingly frequent changes of majority between the Dems and the GOP. If you tried to pull any of this over in the stats threads, you'd get crucified, including by some of your lefty comrades. But as with liberal politics, I guess such principles get tossed out the window when they're inconvenient.

***

Someone should tie Joe to a chair and force him to read and re-read that article, until it finally sinks in on him that his entire set of assumptions about the 2012 electorate were based largely on wishful thinking.

How do you figure? In 2008, a D+7 electorate delivered more than a 7-point win to Obama. In 2012, an (allegedly*) D+6 electorate delivered less than a 4-point win. Take away Sandy and/or the ludicrous "war on women," and we might be talking about president-elect Romney right now. (A lot of the exit polling suggests we would be talking about president-elect Romney right now.)

(* Unlike 2008, when there was exit polling nationwide, there was no or reduced exit polling in 19 states in 2012, including 16 (?) that were won by Romney.)

Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of the conservative fundamentalist American Family Association, on Thursday told a so-called “expert” who denies climate change that not using God’s fossil fuels would be like “crushing” someone’s feelings by rejecting their birthday present.

***
“The wicked and lazy master was the one who buried his talent in the ground and didn’t do anything to multiply it,” Beisner explained.

Right, That’s essentially what those who say we need to stop using marijuana are telling us to do. Just leave those resources buried in the ground, rather than pulling them out and multiplying their value for human benefit.

Fischer likened the situation to a birthday present he was given at the age of six.

“I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective

herbal medications

“And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”
“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

If you ignore all the weird paranoia and terrible, terrible atmosphere of secrecy, which admittedly is a big deal, Nixon actually has a hell of a record. He ended Vietnam, he founded the EPA, he normalized relations with China, he was a faithful steward of Harry Truman's foreign policy.

That is almost exactly the conversation I was having with someone yesterday. With the exception of what happened in Viet Nam -- and I don't fully blame him for that because (a) Viet Nam was a complete clusterfuck from the get go, (b) our enemies over there were pretty nasty themselves, and (c) he eventually did stumble on the right solution (Declare Victory and Leave) -- I had no major problems with his policies and actions as President.

As a person, however, he was completely twisted. That may have made him an effective President in some ways, but also very scary.

Johnson was fine on certain domestic issues, particularly Civil Rights, but his foreign policy, especially Viet Nam, left a lot to be desired.

Clinton lucked out, in that by the time he took office, the Cold War was over. All the heavy lifting had been done.

And really, while I understand why he is popular, what did he really do? His adventure in Health Care came a complete cropper, and led to the Newt Gingrich Republican Revolution, thank you very much. His success in the economic sphere was to a certain degree the result of the run up of the tech bubble, which burst just as he was leaving office. It was that and gridlock which allowed him to balance the budget -- there were no tax cuts, and it was hard to raise domestic spending.

Now, he seems a very bright guy, and an engaging politician, but what exactly did he accomplish in office?

EDIT -- Okay, I forgot about Welfare Reform. That was something of an accomplishment, even if it sounds more like a Republican one.

Clinton doesnt get enough blame for NAFTA and also the repeal of the GLass-Stegall Act on his watch. In fact you could lay a fair amount of blame on what happened in 2008 to his presidency. And he really never gets hit on trying to reign in lot the shenanigans that led up to the tech bubble.

Someone should tie Joe to a chair and force him to read and re-read that article, until it finally sinks in on him that his entire set of assumptions about the 2012 electorate were based largely on wishful thinking.

How do you figure? In 2008, a D+7 electorate delivered more than a 7-point win to Obama. In 2012, an (allegedly*) D+6 electorate delivered less than a 4-point win.

What do you mean "allegedly"? And don't be too surprised if the final popular vote margin is closer to 5% than to 4%.

Take away Sandy and/or the ludicrous "war on women," and we might be talking about president-elect Romney right now.

Except that Romney's overhyped "momentum" stopped on about October 12th, well before Sandy. Just because you never noticed it doesn't make it any less real. And I distinctly remember Republicans citing polls saying that the gender gap had virtually been eliminated.

But of course the real reason for Romney's loss was the Republicans' radically reactionary platform and the character of Romney himself, as perfectly encapsulated by his "47%" speech. Perhaps when you're finally through spinning the Romney Top, you can put yourself in a time machine and spin Carter back into the White House.

(A lot of the exit polling suggests we would be talking about president-elect Romney right now.)

I'm not sure whether those exit polls were coming from Karl Rove or from that Barack O'Fraudo guy, but you really need to go out and get some fresh air.

He also pointed out that both parties are pretty good at pissing off (small-L) libertarians right now: Republicans socially, Democrats economically.

Except, smart people are pretty good at seeing through 'lower taxes' = 'in my economic interest' simplemindedness. As was ably pointed out upthread, lower taxes require revenue to be made up elsewhere, and the economy overall simply does better under Democratic presidents.

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”

“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

That's not sad. What's sad is that this isn't remotely the fringe of the party.

One you start with the assumption of "there are zombies", you are way off the edge of the bell curve on realism, so the rest of the assumptions are really window dressing.

Uh, yeah.

Nuh-uh. Extraordinary origins or initial circumstances are staples of fiction. The success of fiction thereafter routinely depends on the intelligence and consistency of what you're calling 'window dressing'. That intelligence and consistency allows for the ongoing, successful suspension of disbelief essential to so many good and great works.

Anyone seen Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke? Awfully good. Hawke's tentativeness often makes him unconvincing as an actor, but here it works to his advantage in playing a new officer in menacing circumstances.

What do you mean "allegedly"? And don't be too surprised if the final popular vote margin is closer to 5% than to 4%.

I explained the "allegedly" in the footnote. And how is Obama going to win by 5 points if he hasn't even gotten to 4 points?

Except that Romney's overhyped "momentum" stopped on about October 12th, well before Sandy. Just because you never noticed it doesn't make it any less real. And I distinctly remember Republicans citing polls saying that the gender gap had virtually been eliminated.

The polls say otherwise, both re: Romney's momentum and re: the effect of Sandy and/or the "war on women" on voters. 2012 supposedly had the biggest gender gap in history.

I'm not sure whether those exit polls were coming from Karl Rove or from that Barack O'Fraudo guy, but you really need to go out and get some fresh air.

We've been through this several times. The data originally was posted by one of the liberals here (Kiko Sakata, I believe), at least re: Sandy. Something like 12 percent of voters said Sandy was their most important issue, and they went 3:1 for Obama.

EDIT -- Okay, I forgot about Welfare Reform. That was something of an accomplishment, even if it sounds more like a Republican one.

In a lot of ways, Clinton and Nixon were mirror images of eachohter. Clinton's biggest accomplishments (balanced budgets, welfare reform, NAFTA) were all things that are traditionally thought of as 'right' priorities. Similarly, Nixon's accomplishments are in the 'left' areas of the EPA and open diplomacy.

The Republican Party's key electoral problem doesn't come from social conservatives or nativists. It comes from the economic policy demands of the party's wealthy donors. Murphy allows that Republicans "have lost much of our once solid connection to the middle class on kitchen-table economic issues." But his prescription won't do anything to fix that problem.

What are the "kitchen-table" economic concerns of the middle class? They're high unemployment, slow income growth, underwater mortgages, and the rising cost of health care and higher education. Democrats have an agenda that is responsive to these concerns. Republicans don't -- and they don't because the party's donor class specifically doesn't want one.

Joe K, #11,110:For about the tenth time, your entire "increased House incumbency" theory is based on a minuscule 3-percentage-point difference between imbalanced sample sizes with cherry-picked endpoints, while also ignoring the relatively modern trend of strategic retirement and the increasingly frequent changes of majority between the Dems and the GOP. If you tried to pull any of this over in the stats threads, you'd get crucified, including by some of your lefty comrades. But as with liberal politics, I guess such principles get tossed out the window when they're inconvenient.

We were talking past you, but since you insist...

(a) That "minuscule 3-percentage-point difference" doesn't go in somewhere between a 0% and 100% reelection rate. The incumbency return rate has always been high; in recent years, it’s moved higher still. So a 3-percentage-point difference within an 8- or 10-point functional range of possibility would be kind of noticeable, yeah.

(b) I listed 60 years of House election data which contradicted your confident hunches. What do balanced sample sizes or reasonable endpoints look like on your planet? Do I need to check whether Henry Clay ever got primaried?

(c) “The relatively modern trend of strategic retirement.” Yes, so modern. Let’s take a look at a couple of of the biggest wave elections of yesteryear. The GOP lost 52 seats in 1930. In advance of the election, 36 incumbent Congressmen retired or failed to get the nomination.

The GOP lost 48 seats in 1958; in advance of that election, 37 incumbent Congressmen retired or failed to get the nomination.

The Democrats lost 47 seats in 1966; in advance of that election, 32 incumbent Congressmen retired or failed to get the nomination.

But today, the battlefield has changed completely, as strategy has at last entered the world of politics. The Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010. In advance of that election, 34 incumbent Congressmen retired or failed to get the nomination.

(d)“Increasingly frequent changes of majority between the Dems and the GOP”? Yes, three of them. The reasons for which have been explained. And weren’t you just whining about insufficient sample sizes earlier in the same sentence?

This is the part where Allen Funt or Ashton Kutcher emerges from the back laughing, and good-naturedly throws his arm around my shoulder, right?

What are the "kitchen-table" economic concerns of the middle class? They're high unemployment, slow income growth, underwater mortgages, and the rising cost of health care and higher education. Democrats have an agenda that is responsive to these concerns.

(a) That "minuscule 3-percentage-point difference" doesn't go in somewhere between a 0% and 100% reelection rate. The incumbency return rate has always been high; in recent years, it’s moved higher still. So a 3-percentage-point difference within an 8- or 10-point functional range of possibility would be kind of noticeable, yeah.

And yet, despite demographics that are allegedly quite hostile to the GOP, the Dems' once-sizable majority has not only been substantially reduced, but the GOP retook the House in 1994, lost it in 2006, and then retook it again in 2010, even though incumbency is (allegedly) more powerful than ever. I guess incumbency is more powerful now, except when it isn't.

(b) I listed 60 years of House election data which contradicted your confident hunches. What do balanced sample sizes or reasonable endpoints look like on your planet? Do I need to check whether Henry Clay ever got primaried?

For the first two weeks of this debate, you and/or your BurlyBuehrle were comparing an 18-year sample to a 16-year sample while using an arbitrary 1980 midpoint. Are you denying this?

(d)“Increasingly frequent changes of majority between the Dems and the GOP”? Yes, three of them. The reasons for which have been explained.

Yes, explained in a nonsensical way. If incumbency is increasingly powerful, and demographics are increasingly hostile to the GOP, then it's quite strange that the balance of power in the House has shifted 3 times since 1994 after changing ZERO TIMES in the preceding 40 years.

And weren’t you just whining about insufficient sample sizes earlier in the same sentence?

Anyone seen Training Day with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke? Awfully good. Hawke's tentativeness often makes him unconvincing as an actor, but here it works to his advantage in playing a new officer in menacing circumstances.

I liked the movie for its outrageousness. Denzel took his performance "over the top" starting pretty early in the movie, and he escalated from there.

If he's going to play the heavy, I much preferred the way he did it in American Gangster.

Reading Nixonland will relieve one of any nostalgia for his Presidency,

His presidency coincided with my High School and College Years. That is prime nostalgia time for anyone, regardless of who is in the White House. My main political issues then were Viet Nam and tuition hikes (when I was sober enough to have any). I still remember, my first year of college, stumbling into a friend's room and being surprised to learn that the Mets were in the world Series, and then in the middle of the game having them cut away to a breaking notice that Agnew had resigned. So there I am sticking my head out the second floor window, yelling to all and sundry about Agnew resigning. At that time, the Courtyard of our dorm (Bexley Hall, which in many functioned more as a frat/head house than a standard MIT dorm) had this big banner on it which said "Impeach Nixon". Shortly thereafter, we added a small cardboard below it:

"Their platform" did quite well in 2010, and without "those nutters," the GOP would have Charlie Crist and David Dewhurst instead of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Imagine if they had been joined by Dick Lugar, Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, Jane Norton, and Sarah Steelman/John Brunner. We'd be looking at a 50-50 split in the Senate. Instead the GOP nominated two legitimate nut jobs in Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle and three well-below average candidates in Mourdock, Akin, and Ken Buck.

And that's not even considering losing a highly winnable seat like North Dakota.

Three weeks after the presidential election, President Obama continues to slowly build his margin of victory over Mitt Romney. The political analyst most closely following the tally now projects that Obama to eventually best the Republican by about 5 million votes and earn 51% of the total.

That would make the Democratic incumbent the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to twice get 51% or more of the popular vote. Ike ran up massive 55% and 57% landslides over Sen. Adlai Stevenson (D-Ill.).

As of Thursday, Obama had 65,089,940 votes, putting him at 50.9%, according to totals being compiled by David Wasserman, an editor at the Cook Political Report. But Obama’s margin stands to continue climbing, as many votes remain to be counted in Democratic-leaning states. (Obama ended up with 52.9% of the vote his 2008 run against Republican John McCain.)

Wasserman estimates there are 100,000 votes outstanding in New Jersey, 300,000 left to count in California and as many as 1 million in New York not yet tabulated. Election officials blame Superstorm Sandy, in part, for the slow tally on parts of the Eastern Seaboard. Many voters there cast provisional ballots, whose legitimacy must be verified before they can be counted.

The final numbers may upset some of the conventional thinking that had begun to congeal early around the 2012 outcome. It now appears that a total of 130 million votes may have been cast nationally for all candidates. That would only be 1.3 million fewer than in 2008 — when the unprecedented ascendancy of an African-American to a major party ticket was thought to have driven high turnout.

In arguing against an Obama mandate from the 2012 election, some Republicans had noted that the incumbent would get 7 million fewer votes than he did in 2008. Now it appears that difference may end up being something closer to 3 million.

Wasserman is U.S. House editor for the Washington-based Cook report. He already spends long hours tracking every House race in America but said he added on the presidential tally “for kicks.” With most (or maybe all) big news organizations giving up the labor-intensive work of tracking results county by county in the weeks after election day, Wasserman now has the work mostly to himself. That makes him a go-to source for politicos and journalists.

BTW for comparison, Bush II had a re-election margin of almost exactly 2.5%.

Except that Romney's overhyped "momentum" stopped on about October 12th, well before Sandy. Just because you never noticed it doesn't make it any less real. And I distinctly remember Republicans citing polls saying that the gender gap had virtually been eliminated.

The polls say otherwise, both re: Romney's momentum and re: the effect of Sandy and/or the "war on women" on voters. 2012 supposedly had the biggest gender gap in history.

I'm not sure whether those exit polls were coming from Karl Rove or from that Barack O'Fraudo guy, but you really need to go out and get some fresh air.

We've been through this several times. The data originally was posted by one of the liberals here (Kiko Sakata, I believe), at least re: Sandy. Something like 12 percent of voters said Sandy was their most important issue, and they went 3:1 for Obama.

I realize you still don't quite get that Silver's readings were almost dead on the money from top to bottom, but according to him, Romney's projected percentage of the popular vote peaked on October 12th, when he trailed by only 0.8%. By the day of the storm, before anyone knew how the government was going to handle it, Obama's projected margin was already up to 1.9%. By the day before the election, it was 2.5%. Sandy clearly helped, but without it the margin would have been only slightly reduced. By the time of the storm, the momentum was clearly in Obama's direction. Maybe not according to Gallup or Rasmussen, but we saw how they fared when the results were in.

As for the effect of the women's vote, of course that was a key factor, but at 55% Obama's percentage of that vote was about the same as in 2008. A combination of gerrymandering and the nature of congressional districting was the only thing that kept the House under GOP control, since even there the Democrats won the majority of votes nationwide.

Bottom line is that from the very start, the Democrats prayed that the Republicans would show their true face to the country, and bottom line 2 is that their prayers were answered. We couldn't have asked for a more dismal pair of opponents, or for an opposition party that showed such contempt for half of the electorate. You wanted a referendum election, and you got just what you asked for.

Their platform in 2010 was "The economy sucks and it's all Barry's fault!" and "Obama will take away your Medicare!" That same platform didn't hold up a second time around.

It didn't? Romney wasn't a Tea Party standard-bearer in the presidential race, while the GOP held the House.

***

Imagine if they had been joined by Dick Lugar, Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, Jane Norton, and Sarah Steelman/John Brunner. We'd be looking at a 50-50 split in the Senate. Instead the GOP nominated two legitimate nut jobs in Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle and three well-below average candidates in Mourdock, Akin, and Ken Buck.

No, thanks. If Akin and Mourdock and O'Donnell were the cost of getting Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake and Marco Rubio, I'd make that trade every day of the week, without hesitation.

Everyone at Vassar wore black the day after his reelection, but most of my professors gave extensions on papers due that week so it wasn't all bad.

Wait. To get reelected, don't you have to have been elected at some point?

From spike's link in 11122:

3. All issues are connected. Abortion isn’t just a social issue or even a moral question. It undercuts the family, which devastates the economy. It also eliminates future workers and consumers, reducing growth. Men fight and die for their families, not something called society. Thus, stable families are the linchpin of national security as well as the economy. America’s industrial engine helped win World War II. A weak economy leaves us vulnerable militarily and burdens families. Those who call themselves economic conservatives — or values voters or Neo-Cons — miss the big picture.

At what point does the apprehension of reality become so distorted and idiosyncratic that it veers into mental illness?

1. Understand that the left intends to destroy you. Your opponent isn’t a nice guy or a misguided idealist. He’s a dogmatist cut from the same cloth as Robespierre and Lenin — a storm trooper waiting to be fitted with jack boots and issued a truncheon. Look at the way the left runs academia, where it’s achieved near total dominance: brainwashing, rigid censorship and draconian punishment for thought crimes. This is what it’s planning for the rest of America. It lies, loots and manipulates. It is driven by envy, bitterness, disdain and a relentless power-lust. It ruins careers to make a political point. It would suppress conservative talk radio and send men to prison for the exercise of First Amendment freedom. Last April, when I heard Romney say, “The president is a nice guy, but we can’t afford him for four more years,” My first thought was, “Mitt’s a nice guy, but how in the hell did we end up with him as the alternative to Obama?” We consistently underestimate the opposition by assuming it’s well-intentioned and plays by the same rules we do. It isn’t and it doesn’t.

The paranoia and projection is extraodinary. The last two sentences were perfectly true of how the Dems regularly failed to grasp the GOPs approach to power and politics starting with Nixon. It was only with Clinton that that began to change, though Gore then Kerry were deer in headlights compared to Bill. Obama figured it out, of course, and his rapid response team did a great job of fending off some of the worst of the Romney campaign's attacks.

Oh, and since people brought up Clinton, he was a ####### weasel who screwed working families almost as badly as Reagan did. And welfare reform is nifty if you don't actually need, you know, welfare.

Love the Walmart op-ed.

We recently did a confidential survey of more than 20,000 hourly workers to see what's really on our associates' minds. Some 86 percent responded they "agree" or "strongly agree" with the statement "I really love my job."

If he's going to play the heavy, I much preferred the way he did it in American Gangster.

On my list, and I'm looking forward to it. Denzel is typically treated like a movie star, but he's a hell of an actor.

The final numbers may upset some of the conventional thinking that had begun to congeal early around the 2012 outcome. It now appears that a total of 130 million votes may have been cast nationally for all candidates. That would only be 1.3 million fewer than in 2008 — when the unprecedented ascendancy of an African-American to a major party ticket was thought to have driven high turnout.

In arguing against an Obama mandate from the 2012 election, some Republicans had noted that the incumbent would get 7 million fewer votes than he did in 2008. Now it appears that difference may end up being something closer to 3 million.

As much as I want the beating Romney took to be as painful for the GOP as possible, let's not pad the totals, people. How much did population increase between 2008 and 2012? As in, even if he gets as many votes in 2012 as he did in 2008, that's a drop off for Obama.

We've been through this several times. The data originally was posted by one of the liberals here (Kiko Sakata, I believe), at least re: Sandy. Something like 12 percent of voters said Sandy was their most important issue, and they went 3:1 for Obama.

This presumes that Sandy was the deciding factor in their vote, which conveniently ignores:
A: Sandy struck in a heavily populated, overwhelmingly Democratic area - the universe of "Sandy" voters would reflect this.
B: The universe of Sandy voters would would preclude many who already opposed the President, as they would hardly find it their most important reason for doing so.
C: The universe of Sandy voters would include many from non-affected areas who were predisposed to vote for the President, and found his efforts to be particularly compelling, but would have voted for him anyway.

Good lord. Joe is still litigating an election wherein his candidate was soundly beaten? Amazin'.

Something interesting: I wonder how often it happened that one party gained a supermajority in both houses along with the Governorship? This time around the GOP has Indiana, Oklahoma, and No Carolina; probably Ohio, too, where scumbag and vote thief Sec'y of State John Husted is in the process of tossing enough provisional ballots in the two house races that are still undecided (one by 16 votes, the second by 120 votes) to give Republicans the win.

It presumes Sandy was the deciding factor in their vote because the respondents explicitly said Sandy was the deciding factor in their vote.

which conveniently ignores:
A: Sandy struck in a heavily populated, overwhelmingly Democratic area - the universe of "Sandy" voters would reflect this.
B: The universe of Sandy voters would would preclude many who already opposed the President, as they would hardly find it their most important reason for doing so.
C: The universe of Sandy voters would include many from non-affected areas who were predisposed to vote for the President, and found his efforts to be particularly compelling, but would have voted for him anyway.

Per the numbers Kiko posted, 12 percent* of respondents claimed Sandy was their top issue when it came to voting. 12 percent of ~126,000,000 votes is roughly 15,000,000 votes, which went 3:1 for Obama. Obviously, in a 51-47 election, a large percentage of those votes were going to Obama anyway, but if 15 million people actually allowed a storm to decide their vote, a million or two of those votes were probably up for grabs and available to Romney if Sandy hadn't hit.

Sandy alone might not have been enough to swing the election away from Romney, but it might have been enough to swing the election away from Romney in Florida (hurricane state) and Virginia (hit by Sandy), even before getting into the "war on women" nonsense.

(* It might have been 8 percent, but they still went 3:1 for Obama, and that's still an awfully large number of people basing their presidential decision on a storm — or, more accurately, basing their decision on a photo op after a storm.)

Per the numbers Kiko posted, 12 percent* of respondents claimed Sandy was their top issue when it came to voting. 12 percent of ~126,000,000 votes is roughly 15,000,000 votes, which went 3:1 for Obama. Obviously, in a 51-47 election, a large percentage of those votes were going to Obama anyway, but if 15 million people actually allowed a storm to decide their vote, a million or two of those votes were probably up for grabs and available to Romney if Sandy hadn't hit.

Bull ####. "Sandy was my top issue" does not mean "I was going to vote for Romney, but I changed my vote because I like what the President did WRT Sandy."

Bull ####. "Sandy was my top issue" does not mean "I was going to vote for Romney, but I changed my vote because I like what the President did WRT Sandy."

You're really bad at reading. At no time did I make such a claim. I simply pointed out that of the ~15,000,000 people who said Sandy was their No. 1 issue, over 11,000,000 of them voted for Obama. If there was no Sandy, then at least some of those ~11,000,000 people presumably would have been up for grabs, given that it was a 51-47 election and not a 75-25 election.

(Now, granted, anyone dumb enough to vote for Obama based on his post-Sandy photo op is highly likely to be a Dem voter anyway, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.)

Nonsense? It's in their freakin platform for Crissakes. The nutjobs in Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota merely highlighted that fact.

The "war on women" was in the GOP platform? I guess it's amazing the GOP got any female votes.

***

Rank speculation

Yes, that's how hypotheticals work.

and ignores B and C in my above post

"B" was nonsense, since 25 percent of the people for whom Sandy was their No. 1 issue voted for Romney, while "C" both ignored that "non-affected" Florida voters are probably more likely than anyone to value hurricane response, and also contradicted "A," in that you simultaneously implied/claimed that the vast majority of the Sandy voters were either Dems from NYC (affected area) or Dems from Nevada and Washington State ("non-affected areas"), leaving few or no independent voters or possible Dem (or GOP) defectors.

I simply pointed out that of the ~15,000,000 people who said Sandy was their No. 1 issue, over 11,000,000 of them voted for Obama. If there was no Sandy, then at least some of those ~11,000,000 people presumably would have been up for grabs, given that it was a 51-47 election and not a 75-25 election.

And presumably some of the ~4,000,000 who voted for Romney would be up for grabs as well. You have simply no way of knowing how those 15,000,000 would have broken down based on the information presented.

edit: Now i see your problem.

(* It might have been 8 percent, but they still went 3:1 for Obama, and that's still an awfully large number of people basing their presidential decision on a storm — or, more accurately, basing their decision on a photo op after a storm.)

Just because something is a #1 issue doesn't mean they are basing their election decision on it. In fact, everyone by definition has a number one issue. Is it your contention that every single voter is a one issue voter? If not, what makes you think that everyone for whom Sandy was the #1 issue is?

What areas were affected by Sandy the most? NYC and New Jersey. NYC cast over 2 million votes and went 80% for Obama. New Jersey cast nearly 2.4 mil and went 58% for Obama. Is it really any surprise that the people for whom Sandy was the #1 issue went overwhelming for Obama when the people most affected by Sandy vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway? If Sandy had hit the gulf coast instead, the people for whom Sandy was the #1 issue would have voted more for Romney.

NYC was down 500,00 votes from 2008, presumably due mostly to the storm. Since Obama gets 80 of that vote, that's 300,000 net votes he lost. New Jersey was down 1.4 million. He got 57% in 2008 and 58% in 2012. That's another 200,000 margin lost due mostly to the storm. How about you factor that net loss of 500,000 into your what if scenario? There's no way of knowing, but I'll bet it's at least as big as the number of Sandy voters who would have switched sides to Romney.

edit: Sorry, bad math. NJ was down only .4 mil, not 1.4. Still, Obama lost significant net votes from the area due to lower turnout.

You know people were saying for months and months the economy was the most important issue and for months and months Obama was leading in the polls. Stupid trolls trolling about the election don't really need much to keep on trolling. Can we go back to the zombie apocalypse?

Just saw the latest installment of Resident Evil. Nice mindless action flick. Milla is starting to get a little long in the tooth and apparently after a 6th movie they are going to reboot the franchise. Anyway, the "zombies" and virus in RE might very well wipe out the Earth.

people were saying for months and months the economy was the most important issue and for months and months Obama was leading in the polls

And my feeling was, all along: yeah, the economy is worse than it was in 2008, but it's better than it was in 2010. The economy is always hugely important, but people don't study charts and tables and then vote by algorithm; likewise, economic reports on this or that measure are big news inside the Beltway but abstract generalizations out in the actual states. Instead, most people vote individually on the basis of whether things are good or bad, fixing to get better or worse, from their own perspectives. I've got to figure that better outweighed worse for enough people that O's economic record was a net plus for him.

Good lord. Joe is still litigating an election wherein his candidate was soundly beaten? Amazin'.

He will continue to rehash and relitigate the election, and why his side unfairly lost, until he finds some other spurious, specious argument that he thinks is more important in his crusade against Obama and all things non Republican Party. He will pretend that Hurricane Sandy was the deciding factor of the election. He will continue to pretend that rapid response and effective government action in response to natural disaster isn't a rational issue to think about when electing a government. He will continue to dismiss the GOP's policy positions which drive women away from them in droves as something irrational and hysterical "nonsense" (because women make decisions for nonsensical reasons, because they are hysterical and irrational, because of their uterus based cognition problems.)

The only thing that will pull Joe off of these talking points is some major blowup that he can blame on Obama (regardless of reason or rational thought.) I predict that he will spin off of the election "but it doesn't really count" meme he's been on sense he was punked by reality three weeks ago when the Nov and Dec unemployment numbers show a jump upwards. Joe will blame this on Obama, and ignore completely, magically and all of a sudden, any notion that Hurricane Sandy might have had some carry on effect outside of the initial storm surge.

It didn't? Romney wasn't a Tea Party standard-bearer in the presidential race, while the GOP held the House.

The TP standard-bearers couldn't survive the primary stage, what makes you think any of the non-Romneys were going to do better at the national level? And besides, the GOP lost ground in the House and in the Senate, so it wasn't just the White House that was a problem. But if you don't see a problem, then neither do I.

No kidding. Huntsman probably would have done ok head to head with Obama (still losing though), but failed the purity testing during the primary for the sin of consorting with Fartbongo - hilariously despite being quite conservative. Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann, or Cain would have been utterly landslided. Romney is a two-faced unlikeable #########, but at least could semi-plausibly turn to the center after being nominated, and at least sounded a little like a plausible candidate for office.

I actually disagree about Perry. IMO, it makes a big difference that the painkillers really messed with him. The best thing you can say about Perry is that he's smart enough to surround himself with really smart people. In addition, he actually has a somewhat compelling narrative with Texas.

I think Perry would probably have lost (the fundamentals pointed to Obama +2-3 or so), but he might have done better than Romney. Hard to tell if he was so bad because he was hopped up on goofballs, or if he was so bad because he was just stupid.

I think Perry would probably have lost (the fundamentals pointed to Obama +2-3 or so), but he might have done better than Romney. Hard to tell if he was so bad because he was hopped up on goofballs, or if he was so bad because he was just stupid.

Here's what I don't understand about the Perry-on-pain-killers angle. There were 6000 primary debates for the GOP. A GOP primary debate was airing more frequently than re-runs of Two And A Half Men. If your candidate is in so much pain he has to take A-grade, doozy-up-the-brain pain killers, just skip the debate. There's always next time.

The only time that the Republicans have ever nominated a truly fringe candidate** was in 1964, and Barry Goldwater carried his home state of Arizona and the 5 most hardcore segregationist states. The more the GOP plays to its base's worst instincts, the worse they do.

**Reagan was no more of a fringe candidate than Obama, in spite of how his opponents tried to picture him. His rhetoric was anti-government, but he never campaigned on ideas such as privatizing any of our entitlement programs.

Sorry if this is inflammatory but these political threads were way better pro-Kehoskie. It gets tiring watching people knock over his ####### idiotic warmed-over talking points. At least DMN (wherever he is) and Ray and Good Face and whatnot provide some variation. Joe is just like a really poorly programmed Rush Limbaugh robot.

Huntsman probably would have done ok head to head with Obama (still losing though), but failed the purity testing during the primary for the sin of consorting with Fartbongo - hilariously despite being quite conservative. Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann, or Cain would have been utterly landslided.

Well, you and I know that, and most professional class Goopers know that too. Hell, a majority of the GOP primary base voters know as much. But the Teaper cohort that you linked to in 11122 (and apparently, well, Joe) don't really get it. They think Romney lost because he pivoted to the center in the debates. They think Romney lost because he didn't run *toward* the 47% comments and fully embrace the Ryan-Randian positions. They think the problem was that the GOP "abandoned" Todd Akin and the rape-gate Senate candidates.

They are idiots. Mind numbingly, in the tank, idiots. But they're never going to realize that they're a tiny minority of the nation until they get to run one of their own, a true believer (Santorum, or Bachmann, or Cain maybe) and have them be Mondaled.

(I doubt a run and road-kill loss by Gingrich would suffice to discompel them of their false assumptions, as they'd fugue-state into "Gingrich wasn't really a conservative, just look at his record from the 1990s" as soon as that became convenient for their efforts to preserve the "conservatism can not fail" narrative.)

Sorry if this is inflammatory but these political threads were way better pro-Kehoskie. It gets tiring watching people knock over his ####### idiotic warmed-over talking points. At least DMN (wherever he is) and Ray and Good Face and whatnot provide some variation.

Joe is just like a really poorly programmed Rush Limbaugh robot.

As opposed to the interchangeable walk me / talk me / change me Ayn Rand kewpie dolls AKA David and Ray. I'm not seeing much difference, other than that Joe occasionally flashes a faux populism card that the other two would seldom use.

They think Romney lost because he pivoted to the center in the debates. They think Romney lost because he didn't run *toward* the 47% comments and fully embrace the Ryan-Randian positions. They think the problem was that the GOP "abandoned" Todd Akin and the rape-gate Senate candidates.

I know some of the right-wingers have stated stuff like this, but I think they're just poorly articulating their primary concern about Romney. It wasn't that Romney wasn't "conservative enough" so much as he was running as a political technocrat, basically a guy who could keep the GOP's political trains running on time. Unfortunately for the GOP that technocrat just ran against another, vastly superior, political technocrat. The GOPers are playing the counter-factual where their candidate has a trace of charisma and isn't a nutjob, which really shouldn't be as absurd as Kate Upton in a Zombie Apocalypse, but for whatever reason was in 2012.

Denzel is typically treated like a movie star, but he's a hell of an actor.

Funny, I've always thought of him as an actor first. Glory, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, The Hurricane. He has a great deal of charisma, which makes him a movie star also, but he first caught my eye as an actor.

The best thing you can say about Perry is that he's smart enough to surround himself with really smart people

Here in Texas, we tend to hear from Perry when his office issues statements. On the national trail, interacting live with the world 24/7, he seemed to go the way of Sarah Palin. Or was it almost the reverse? Palin was an inane but relatively gaffeless candidate; she only started to unravel at the national level after 2008, when she had lots and lots of time to work up independent, intelligent things to say, and couldn't even begin to cope with the task.

The GOPers are playing the counter-factual where their candidate has a trace of charisma and isn't a nutjob, which really shouldn't be as absurd as Kate Upton in a Zombie Apocalypse, but for whatever reason was in 2012.

Ah, you brought it full circle... nice job.

I think the weak '12 Repub field was a combination of 1) the Repub bench (Rubio, Christie, Jindal) being relatively young/new to the scene and 2) since the decision to run normally has to be made years in advance, the assumption that 2011-12 would be big growth years economically and Obama would likely win. Absent #2, perhaps one or the more of the folks mentioned in #1 would have done what Obama did in '08 and went for it anyway. But it probably didn't seem like the right call to go that route against an incumbent whom you (again, at the time the decision had to be made) expected to win.

I do agree with #11173 about Perry. Who else was there...Bush is named Bush... I don't think Palin seriously wants it... I can buy that Daniels doesn't want it either, and I don't see him doing any better than a Huntsman anyway. Huckabee's an interesting one, I don't get why he didn't run. I guess maybe he likes being a Fox News guy more, but I'm not sure why...

I do agree with #11173 about Perry. Who else was there...Bush is named Bush... I don't think Palin seriously wants it... I can buy that Daniels doesn't want it either, and I don't see him doing any better than a Huntsman anyway. Huckabee's an interesting one, I don't get why he didn't run. I guess maybe he likes being a Fox News guy more, but I'm not sure why...

He was pretty clear that his Fox News contract gave him 500,000 reasons each year not to run....that's not big money by the standards of other guys but he was somebody who never made any coin until 2008 and wanted a big house in Florida and worked steadily from 2009-2012 to get it. Makes extra from radio and books. If he's still viable, I could picture him closing up in 2014 and going back on the campaign trail. I don't think he would have survived a Club for Growth attack in the primary, but he would have been a fascinating candidate against Obama as he's about the only truly believable lunch-pail Republican other than the obviously unelectable Santorum, who whatever his other faults does more consistently than most articulate what at least has some waves at a working-class economic populism.

he would have been a fascinating candidate against Obama as he's about the only truly believable lunch-pail Republican other than the obviously unelectable Santorum, who whatever his other faults does more consistently than most articulate what at least has some waves at a working-class economic populism.

And distinctly unlike Santorum, Huckabee displays a genuine-seeming "nice guy" pleasant, good-humored persona. I'm among those who firmly believe that likeability is a very important factor in U.S. Presidential elections.

Who else was there...Bush is named Bush... I don't think Palin seriously wants it... I can buy that Daniels doesn't want it either, and I don't see him doing any better than a Huntsman anyway. Huckabee's an interesting one, I don't get why he didn't run.

I think you're right, and I think that factor goes back well before TV and radio. People liked William Henry Harrison, for instance (candidate of Tippecanoe, hard cider, and "keep the ball rolling"); they thought Martin Van Buren was a weasel. Franklin Pierce was likeable. Warren Harding was likeable (despite how HL Mencken won the verdict of history on Harding, voters were very fond of Harding, who seemed a regular guy, and genuinely saddened by his death). These men were otherwise political nonentities, but they parlayed bonhomie into electoral success.

There's always the complicating factor that to "like" someone is subjective, of course. We've seen in these threads the undecideable debate over whether Barack Obama is likeable or not. The answer seems to be both yes and no: if you have a sense of humor, no fear of "ethnicity," are young, and have even moderate awareness of pop culture, or a couple of the above, you probably like Obama a lot; otherwise you loathe him. Many people liked Ronald Reagan, and many thought he was a disingenuous shell of a politician.

Sometimes it's all relative: I can't truly imagine anyone liking George W Bush except in the "be nice to your simple cousin" kind of way, but running against Al Gore and John Kerry certainly won W the "have a beer with" vote.

It does seem that dour can generate enthusiasm but nothing like a majority. Buchanan was as gifted a political speaker as I've seen but there were good reasons not to nominate him, aside from his lunacy. It turns out to be easier to scare the median voter away from you than to scare that voter toward you.

I do think Romney understood this and thus his painful and unconvincing but give-him-credit-for-the-college-try efforts to come across as Mr Optimist down the stretch. I see a beautiful America.

Bush was amazing on this front as he both stirred up his base and managed not to scare the median voters away from him (even in 2000 he didn't do poorly as a losing candidate but outperformed what I expected in the mid-summer.) By 2004 he was perfect at this.

I agree that Huckabee is the tops at this. Who can hate him? Even if you know you should.

I do think this runs out of gas as a way to understand politics as you cross into the 19th century though. Politicians didn't campaign for president in the 19th century and the sense of whether they were likable was based solely on character sketches. I don't think it's possible to say that Pierce was likable or that Wm Henry Harrison was likable or something. They were unknowable in a way. Certainly no one except possibly his wife thought Polk was likable but it didn't hurt him any. Henry Clay was widely thought to be the most-charming man around and it didn't help him any, either. Andrew Jackson was probably the most hateful person to ever be president--to his friends and his enemies, both--and was the most effective presidential candidate in American history, at least up till FDR. Coalition building was different then and depended less upon the president himself than upon the contest between the existing parties. The reason most of the presidents are forgettable is because they were often placeholders. The better known you were the worse you did in campaigns (Blaine post-war, Clay pre-war) so you wanted the generic Democrat, the generic Whig, the generic Republican.

From your link (@11122) to g*d's ears, spike. These nutters will never go away until they are allowed to run on their platform and beaten to a bloody pulp.

Nah, it'll be the evil minions of the lamestream media keeping the truth from voters as the reason they lose the popular vote by 20%.

Absent #2, perhaps one or the more of the folks mentioned in #1 would have done what Obama did in '08 and went for it anyway. But it probably didn't seem like the right call to go that route against an incumbent whom you (again, at the time the decision had to be made) expected to win.

I honestly don't get this. (Not saying you're wrong, only that I'm baffled at who did and didn't take a shot at the nomination.) The chances to run for President and have ANY kind of shot at winning are scarce as hen's teeth. Running against a President dealing with a grave economic crisis seems like as good a time as any, as does the (presumed) awareness that the field was going to include Romney and a bunch of shmoes.

Maybe the understanding that one would have to run the far right gauntlet in the primaries had a lot to do with narrowing the field well ahead of time, but it's hard to imagine staying out of the race because Obama was going to be a lock for re-election. Obama ran against a bad candidate who had picked a vice president who accomplished the rare feat of costing the ticket votes, and against a party which had led the nation into two bad wars and nearly into bankruptcy, and while the election wasn't particularly close, it wasn't anything like a landslide.

I'm just puzzled that after Romney the candidates who hung in there the longest were the godawful Santorum and Gingrich, and yet no one else who could pass for a real candidate took the opportunity to run.

Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention to the candidacy of Huntsman. Solid guy, passably moderate, but barely registered on anyone's screen. Maybe that was the fate of anyone who didn't want to pretend to be a loon, and that was understood as of 2008, 2009.

I honestly don't get this. (Not saying you're wrong, only that I'm baffled at who did and didn't take a shot at the nomination.) The chances to run for President and have ANY kind of shot at winning are scarce as hen's teeth. Running against a President dealing with a grave economic crisis seems like as good a time as any, as does the (presumed) awareness that the field was going to include Romney and a bunch of shmoes.

Anyone running for POTUS in 2016 has already started campaigning. Not publicly, but internally, for donors and money from the parties. This is the simple, unflinching truth of politics in our era. Jindal didn't run for POTUS in 2012 because he lost the internal nomination by completely flubbing the opposition's response to the SOTU address in 2009. Chris Christie didn't run for POTUS in 2012 because he was a back bencher running for governor in a blue state in 2009; he only became a name brand in the 2012 presidential race when the anyone-but-Romney contingent realized all of their optional other anyone-but candidates were self-imploding clowns. (He's not a candidate for 2016 because he put his state ahead of Romney's campaign in the wake of Sandy and isn't getting the internal GOP money early on, any more than Jindal was going to get it in 2008.)

Factor in the GOP's long standing "next in line" theory of POTUS nominees and there you have it.

I do think this runs out of gas as a way to understand politics as you cross into the 19th century though. Politicians didn't campaign for president in the 19th century and the sense of whether they were likable was based solely on character sketches

Definitely true, though conversely, what does anyone know of the invariably canned personalities who run for high office today? It's a matter of perception. Clay, as you mention, was personally charming in a way that made him a very effective legislative leader; he was also demonized as the "blackleg" by Jackson's supporters, and the image took: Clay had no principles, Clay would say anything to anybody, Clay was Machiavellian. The same principles of subjectivity and variability apply.

1) Why Israel is opposed to the Palestinians creating their own state, since the current situation is what creates the very instability that they're warning against. (see the current skirmish over the last two weeks)

2) That Israel has the power to collect taxes and withhold them in Palestian areas.

Because the Palestinians haven't recognized the Israeli state's right to exist.

That Israel has the power to collect taxes and withhold them in Palestian areas

Because the Palestinians don't have a state. The Israelis are the occupying power.

The idea of an officially Jewish state is an inherently bad idea (just as bad as any other theocracy), and the Israelis have proven to be vicious and cruel occupiers. But the decades of terrorist bombings and other attacks by the Palestinians are equally indefensible. These two actors deserve each other.

Huckabee does a nice job sounding sane, and has that bumbling harmless old guy affect, especially when he talks to John Stewart. But the guy's seriously off the deep end with the religious stuff-- he lets it all fly when he's in front of his home crowd, and it ain't pretty. Being able to speak in both tongues is a cool power to have, but even Stewart has started to sour on the act.